


An Iredeemable Injury

by lady_libertine



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anal Sex, Dreamwalking, Dubious Consent, Dubious Morality, Lima Syndrome, M/M, Qunari, Stockholm Syndrome, Tragedy, Unhealthy Relationships, everything about this is messed up, fen'harel and hissrad mental death match
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-23
Updated: 2019-03-23
Packaged: 2019-11-28 10:56:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 19,631
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18207467
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lady_libertine/pseuds/lady_libertine
Summary: The path is set.  The game is matched.  The Shepard cannot be swayed.Hissrad and Fen'harel meet before they are meant to, and there will be great violence done.Love is a mighty healer, but she cannot heal all wounds.





	1. Beginning

**Author's Note:**

> you know how most of my iron bull/solas stories are fluffy, sweet, or fun? this one isn't like that. at all
> 
> i call it, the fen'harel and hissrad mental death match, where solas and bull get super weirdly involved with each other and it gets fucked up for everyone or; that time solas was captured by the qun and immediately began plotting revenge

Hissrad had only been back in Par Vollen for several months when a problem came up. All had been going fairly routinely, when the Tamarran in charge wanted to see him. 

“We found a Bas-saarebas,” the Tamassran explained to him. “Under unusual circumstances. He is very powerful, and we cannot let him go to the bas. He will cause more damage, and if he is with us, he will be useful.”

Hissrad nodded. “What do you need me to do, Ma’am?”

“I need you to teach him, Hissrad.” she got up and began to pace. “I know you are not a teacher, but this is a special case. You are the best equipped to deal with bas magic, and you are mentally the best suited. Others might be swayed by him or might be affected by his magic.”

“Very well, Ma’am. When should I start?” Hissrad had his doubts, but if she thought he could do it, then he could do it. 

“As soon as possible. He is in the holding cells, away from others. Go to him now, prepare him for the qamek.”

Hissrad inclined his head and left her, going to the holding cells. Saarebas were kept far away from other prisoners, and when Hissrad asked, the guards pointed him in the right direction. This particular Bas-saarebas was being kept away even from other Saarebas, at the very far end of the prison. It was a very small cell, the walls coated with magebane, with magebane cuffs and collar keeping the Bas-saarebas bound in place.

Hissrad took the opportunity to examine his new charge through the tiny window set in the door. The bas-saarebas was an elf, pale and gaunt, who looked like he’d been living rough for quite some time, even before the Qun took him in. He was naked, a precautionary measure that happened to expose the cuts and bruises that covered him. 

It did not escape Hissrad’s notice that he was covered in old scars, far too old to be the work of the Qunari handlers. A burn mark splashed across his chest and over one shoulder, a wide slash crossed across his belly, numerous smaller cuts and burns spanned over his arms and legs. A strange lightning pattern spattered over one leg, as if from a stray spell. There were even the signs of old collar and cuff scars around his wrists, ankles, and neck, that were visible even with the already existing restraints. 

Hissrad knew that people didn’t get that many scars without being either very clever, very fast, very powerful, or very, very lucky. Any combination was a problem for him. He could see why the Tamassran wanted someone a little unique for this job. They could, of course, force the qamek down the elf’s throat, but there was more of an ease of transition if the elf’s mind already accepted the Qun.

At last, Hissrad opened the door and walked inside. The elf tilted his head up to look at him, exposing a face marred with bruises.

He had gray eyes, the shade of a thundercloud, and he looked at Hissrad with utter impassivity. He made no move as Hissrad brought in a chair and sat down, merely watching him, his eyes missing nothing. 

“Are you hurt?” Hissrad asked. “I need to know before we begin.”

No reaction.

Hissrad shrugged, and decided to go right ahead. 

“We’re here to help you,” he explained. “People’s minds are like books,” one of the reeducators had given him this metaphor. He'd found it very enlightening. “Some are fine on their own. But a lot have to be edited.”

Not a flicker of emotion in those gray eyes. He merely watched Hissrad. 

“Saarebas are pretty prone to danger,” he continued. “Demons, bad magic, all of that. So, we stop the corruption.” he paused, waiting for a question. When none came, he went on ahead. 

“It’s pretty simple, how this works,” Hissrad said. “If you want food, water, to clean yourself--you talk to me. You tell me everything about yourself. Otherwise, nothing.” 

The Bas-saarebas tilted his chin up, but otherwise barely reacted. 

Hissrad nodded. “Alright. I’ll see you tomorrow.” 

With a little luck, the Bas-saarebas would want for water or some other necessity very soon. However, with this one, he might need a little more incentive. 

He left the Bas-saarebas alone. Loneliness made people more pliable, more likely to accept the qun. There were a variety of things that could be used to wear someone down, and under the Qun, that was perfected to an art. 

The next day was much the same. Hissrad asked the Bas-saarebas questions, and got no response but those intense gray eyes. The watching was actually a little creepy, but Hissrad never let his discomfort show. Those who were being converted could never be given a weapon, no matter how small. 

Even so, the Bas-saarebas stared as if trying to look right through Hissrad. It was...unnerving. 

“How goes the work with the Bas-saarebas?” the Tamassran asked that second day, after Hissrad left the Bas-saarebas alone again. 

“He’s not like other Bas-saarebas I’ve seen,” Hissrad admitted. “Though a lot of them were ‘vints--Tevinter, and he probably isn’t, so maybe that’s the difference.”

“Will he cause trouble?”

“Too early to tell if he’ll be trouble long-term. He was pretty quiet, didn’t ask any questions, anything. I’m doing the normal stuff first, but I’ll need some of the drugs and I’ll probably need to switch things up for him. He’s stubborn.”

“Very well,” the Tamassran said. “You will have what you require. This one is dangerous, though--if he is too dangerous to bring to us, he must be destroyed.”

“Of course.” 

Hissrad thought that he could bring the Bas-saarebas around, however. It was always better to be alive than dead, and he found that most people felt the same.  
When Hissrad slept that night, he had dreams of a white wolf. 

It walked in the background of his dreams, always just in the distance, a tiny shape that was nevertheless a constant presence. It had six sky-blue eyes. 

Solas cursed himself over and over for getting trapped here. He hadn’t meant to get caught in a fight between the Tevinters and the Qunari, but his blasted burial ground was far enough north that he’d woken up well within Tevinter bounds. The nearest active eluvian was deep in a contested border, but he hadn’t realized that until far too late. 

Now he was here. 

He was absolutely freezing, the cold made worse by how his body was still slightly wasted from Uthenera. He had no weapons of any kind, and the magebane made his head ache fiercely. His mouth was so dry it was like cotton. 

He’d walked into the Qunari’s dreams, trying to glean information. He was a war veteran, a victim of their Qun. 

He was pathetic, hiding glimmering intelligence under layers and layers of fear and Qunari dogma. A slave who had enchained his own mind.

Solas was revolted by the dreamscape, by how people now were little better than automatons, even in their own dreams.

He could hardly think on the state of mind of the Qunari. He needed water. He hadn’t had any in a day and a half, and he could not let himself die of dehydration in a Qunari dungeon. There must be some way to ingratiate himself to his captors enough to survive, and later gain his freedom. He had done such things before.

Hissrad woke up and had to shake off strange dreams. The image of a white wolf lingered in the back of his mind, but he distracted himself and went about his duties. 

Today, Hissrad brought water into the Bas-saarebas’ cell. Without water, the man would die soon, so Hissrad figured he should at least provide the option.

The water was also drugged. The Qunari used a wide variety of drugs in their reeducation efforts, and found them to be extremely useful. They made people more suggestible, more prone to changing their ideas or telling the truth. 

The Bas-saarebas looked even worse today than he had previously, lips dry and cracked. His skin was pale as paper, freckles and bruises standing out starkly. 

Hissrad sat down in front of him, and placed the cup of water by his side, just out of the saarebas’ reach. The Bas-saarebas’ gray eyes darted from it to Hissrad’s face.

“Tell me about yourself, and I give you this.” Hissrad said. 

The elf tilted his head back, watching Hissrad with those fathomless gray eyes. After a very, very long moment, he spoke, voice creaking and weak. “What do you wish to know?”

Hissrad leaned forward, a smile crossing his face. Positive reinforcement worked wonders. “Just some basics about you. What’s your name?”

“What is yours?”

“You first. Then you get this.” he pushed the mug forward. 

The elf considered him for another very long time. “Solas. If there are to be introductions.”

Hissrad nodded, thinking for a moment. “Ah--pride,” he said. “In Elvhen, right?” he knew an Elvhen word or two. Any fool but the Tevinters themselves knew that everything the Tevinters had, they'd stolen—and most of that from elves. Even in Seheron, they'd always had an ancient Elvhen text or other hanging about, for consultation. 

That gaunt face shuttered again, and he did not answer. 

“Give me something else,” Hissrad continued. “Nothing special. Just something about you.” 

“Why?” 

“I need to know it to help you.”

“Why?” 

Hissrad blinked. “So the Qun can fix you. Make sure no demons get into your head.” 

“The company of spirits is not always unpleasant.” 

That was alarming. Hissrad resisted the urge to recoil. “An arrow isn’t dangerous till you launch it from a bow. Doesn’t mean it can’t kill you.” 

“Neither does that mean it will.”

“So you like demons, then?”

“Not demons. Spirits.”

“Same thing.”

“No. Not at all.” 

Hissrad rested his chin on his hands. “So, you’re the kind of mage who chats with demons. Guess that makes you good with the Fade, huh?”

“Only insofar as any mage.”

Hissrad raised an eyebrow. “Sure.”

The mage’s eyes slid to the glass of water again. 

“Alright,” Hissrad said. “I did say I’d give you some.”

He raised the cup to Solas’ lips. The minute the water touched his lips, Solas knew something was wrong with it. However, he couldn’t reject it without tipping his hand. 

It was definitely drugged. His perceptions immediately went wrong, the world tilting wildly, and he could not stop a shudder running through him. 

How fortunate for him that most drugs did him no harm. Waking dreams were quite close to the normal kind, after all. 

He clamped his jaw shut, closed his eyes. He took a deep breath and removed himself from his body. This was a poor effort, but something that was predictable. 

He heard the Qunari ask something, and gave nothing in return. 

Interesting. The elf didn’t respond when Hissrad spoke to him. 

Hissrad sighed. The herbalists who mixed the solution must have used too much of the drug. They should have accounted for his weight and race, but maybe he was unusually prone to this kind of drug. 

He continued to ask questions--what the elf knew, where was he from, what was he afraid of--but to no avail. The only thing he got were hazy responses in mumbled Elvhen, only one word in thirty he understood, and none were relevant to the conversation at hand.

It was interesting, however, that he mostly spoke in Elvhen. Hissrad only knew the spoken language from a Dalish ex-slave, and even she had never spoken that much in Elvhen.   
He supposed he’d have to leave this for another time, then. 

“He’s still not ready for the qamek, Ma’am,” he told the Tamassran. “If you want him alive, I need more time with him.”

The Tamassran sighed. “Yes, we need him,” she said. “He hides it, but our Saarebas tell us he is very powerful. I do not want to throw a tool away.”

“Of course not, Ma’am.”

In Solas’ waking dreams, he tried to reach a friendly spirit, one who might be able to help him out of this. However, all that he could find were demons.

The Qunari had damaged the Fade around them so much, that the kinder spirits had all been chased away. Solas’ lip curled in disgust. Brutes. 

None of his own allies were close enough or powerful enough to help. Solas was on his own. 

He found himself wandering into the dreams of his main interrogator again. Perhaps there was something there that could be used. 

He watched the interrogator’s dreams, many of blood and violence, memories of war and struggle. It would be no surprise if the interrogator had seen battle, especially considering the hostilities with Tevinter.

Hissrad saw the wolf in his dreams again. It was strange, but he felt the urge to approach it. The beast felt almost alien, and stuck out like something that did not truly belong there.

“Who are you?” Hissrad asked the wolf.

The wolf circled him, blue eyes fixed upon him. “We have met before,” the wolf said.

“Did we now?” Hissrad did not take his gaze off the wolf.

“Yes.”

The wolf’s expressions were hard to read, it being a wolf and all, but Hissrad got the distinct impression it was less than impressed with present company. 

“Why are you here?” Hissrad asked.

“I wish to know more about you.”

“Why me?” a feeling curled in Hissrad’s dream-self, a sense of unease that began to permeate the dream. 

The wolf retreated, not answering the question, and soon the dream resumed a normal state once more, and it was forgotten. 

The next day, Hissrad shook the strange wolf from his mind, and went back to converting the mage. He stayed away from the drugs this time, made no mention of them at all. He did note that the elf hesitated only a moment before taking this offered glass of water. 

Interesting. He must have put together the water and the drugs--and remembered the experience. 

“You asked me my name,” Hissrad said as the elf slowly drank the water. “Qunari don’t have names. You should probably get used to that.”

The elf stared at him, gray eyes unwavering in their coldness. Hissrad didn’t show it, but it was eerie, having those eyes focused on him. 

“You’ll be Saarebas,” Hissrad explained further. “Might be a bit of a trick to get used to that after being Pride, but you’ll manage.”

“Dangerous thing,” the elf murmured. 

Hissrad raised his eyebrows. It seemed he’d picked up on some Qunlat already, or at least the meaning behind names.

“You believe your mages to be things.” it was not a question, and Solas' eyes betrayed no curiosity, no fear, nothing but ice. 

“They are dangerous.”

“Of course.” he inclined his head. “But those who bear the gift of magic are not _things_.” his tone turned every so slightly more dangerous, more disgusted, encapsulating all that he thought about Saarebas into one syllable. 

“Is that so?” Hissrad glanced at him. “And what makes you different from anything else?” 

“I think,” the elf said. “I choose. If you chose as well, you would not be the thing the Qun made you.”

Hissrad shook his head. “You don’t understand.”

“Then explain.”

“You don’t understand yet,” Hissrad corrected. “You will.” 

Something finally changed in that face, some unidentifiable emotion that flashed in his expression only for a moment.

“I see. So I will be forced to understand your principles.” the elf tilted his head back. “Your Qun must be very brutal, if there is no other way to guide people to it.”

“There is,” Hissrad admitted. “But not for mages.”

“Perhaps because of what you do to us.”

“Demons can influence you. You can’t be treated like the rest.”

The sudden and utter contempt in the elf’s face was almost enough to make Hissrad protest, to give into his game and claim that the Qun wasn’t brutal, it wasn’t what he thought.  
However, arguing with a prisoner or a convert was a useless exercise. Someone less experienced might have indulged in the urge, but they were not Hissrad.

“You truly believe what they have told you?” the elf asked. 

An interesting move.

“Who, the Tamassrans?”

The elf inclined his head. 

“Yeah,” Hissrad tilted his head to one side, unsure from what angle the elf was arguing. “Like someone would listen to a priest or an enchanter down south, I guess.”

“Do you have no thoughts of your own?” the elf shivered with the cold, and Hissrad made a note to try and coax him with warmth next time. 

“Do you try to figure out everything you don’t understand?” Hissrad replied.

“Yes.”

Hissrad leaned forward, rested his chin on one hand. “Everything? So if you wanted a sword made, you’d try to do it yourself? You don’t look much like a blacksmith to me.”

A strange sense of amusement flashed in the elf’s eyes. “Those who are warriors should make their own weapons, of course.”

“And are you a warrior?”

The elf tilted his head to one side, mimicking Hissrad’s expression. “And if I were, would it be useful to tell you?”

“It might be.”

The conversation felt strange, almost like they were sparring. Hissrad left feeling unsettled, distracted. 

Hissrad could see why the Tamassrans had asked him for his help in this case. The elf was clever, and it seemed possible he had faced interrogations before. 

Solas watched the Qunari leave with a sense of curiosity. The Qunari were brutes, thuggish and crude, but this one had a spark of potential. He could be manipulated to serve Solas’ own ends, or at least, there was a possibility. 

At the very least, he might be manipulated to help keep Solas alive.

Once more, guilt shot through Solas at the realization that he had caused this. He had made the situation that created the Qun, that made magic so alien they thought it was a monstrosity.

If the Qunari were savage and violent, it was only Solas’ own doing that made them that way. 

He resolved to change it. Once he escaped from this prison, he was going to repair his mistake, and make it right. 

He walked into the Qunari’s dreams again. This time he had nightmares, full of blood and violence, and Solas watched from a distance.

He recognized something familiar in the memories. He had been to places like this before, battles and fields of bodies, more gore than anyone would ever want to see in a hundred lifetimes.

It seemed he and his interrogator had something in common. Perhaps that could be used. He waited for an opportune time to intervene. 

The Qunari’s dreams were mostly memory, something that could only be manipulated so far. Solas needed a wholecloth situation in order to effectively manipulate someone, otherwise they would anticipate the interference.

It might take some time, but the night was long, and Solas was endlessly patient. He had to be--when one was trapped in a cage, there was little else to be, but patient. It was a skill hard-learned, but useful. 

At last, his opportunity came at a time of reflection.

Hissrad stood at the mouth of a labyrinth, woven all of silk and blood. The labyrinth was a dungeon, a trap, but he could not remember who had laid this particular trap out for him.

It was dangerous, terrible, but something inside was important. He went a few steps inside, and the walls rose up around him, blocking out the view of the sky above.

Not that he could see the sky very clearly to begin with. 

The walls of the labyrinth began to bleed, and the path was coated with ash. There were chains attached to the walls, like those in the Qunari prison. 

He came to a fork in the path, and halted, indecision catching up to him even in dreams. 

Something was behind him, and he turned to see that an enormous wolf had followed him into the labyrinth It settled its massive bulk on the path, thouroughly blocking the way out. It laid its six eyes on him, eyes as red as a bloody sunrise. 

He looked into the wolf’s eyes, and found himself almost drowning, an ocean threatening to swallow him whole. 

The wolf blinked, and Hissrad was released. 

In the logic of dreams, he turned away from the wolf, and looked back into the labyrinth. 

“Is there a path you favor?” The wolf’s voice--for that was what Hissrad knew it to be--was familiar, but he could not place it. 

“No,” Hissrad said, his voice coming thick and slow. “I don’t know which way to go.”

“Is that so?” 

The wolf leaned over, and Hissrad could feel its breath on the back of his neck. 

“Are you certain? Have you truly looked at all of your paths?”

Hissrad closed his eyes. 

“I shouldn’t.”

“Why not?”

Hissrad could not supply an answer. “There’s a path I already know. It just isn’t here.”

“One’s life does not follow an ordered path, however much we may wish it did.” the wolf sounded almost wistful, or as wistful as a wolf could be. 

Hissrad shuddered at the implication of those words, though he could not quite parse what that implication might be.

“Is there not a better way?” the wolf murmured in his ear, 

“What way?” Hissrad demanded. 

“Any way. Choose a path. You need not have one chosen for you.”

“What if I am wrong?”

“A risk that must be taken.”

Hissrad looked at the wolf. Its eyes never wavered from his, and Hissrad was the first to break eye contact.

When Hissrad woke up, he felt the strangest sensation of vertigo for a moment, before the world righted itself again. 

When Hissrad next saw the Bas-saarebas, he thought perhaps he was getting through to him a little. 

The elf was paler now, a bruise on one cheek. That was probably a gift from a Sten--Hissrad wasn’t the only Qunari to visit him. 

“So,” Hissrad said, sitting down in front of the elf. “Where were we?”

The elf tilted his head to one side, that inscrutable expression never leaving his face. 

“The Qun is probably the best system you could have,” Hissrad told him at last. “It’s healthy, and most societies are healthier under it.” 

There was a flicker of expression in that face.

“Is that so?” he asked. 

“You’d be safe,” Hissrad said. “You would have your place. If you make a mistake, it isn’t your fault. Doesn’t anyone want that?” 

Solas’ gaze drifted away from Hissrad’s, the coldness slowly leaving his expression. 

Hissrad repressed a smile, keeping his face neutral. 

Mistakes. That was the way to go. 

“How can you make a wrong step, when someone is guiding your path?” Hissrad cajoled.

“How can I save myself if I am leashed?” the elf asked.

“Why would you need to?”

“Others can make mistakes. The hand that holds the chain is not infalliable simply because they are the master.”

“Is that so?” Hissrad raised his eyebrows. “And how would you know?”

The elf blinked. 

“We all make mistakes,” he said, after a slight pause that made Hissrad’s breath catch in his throat. Then Solas looked him in the eyes. “If we did not, then your Qun would have conquered Tevinter by now.” 

A barb, well thrown. Seheron and blood--no ground gained, none lost. 

“And is that a good state of things?” Hissrad countered.

“I do not agree with either side. Neither is right.”

“And what is right, for you?”

A curious smile flitted across the elf’s face, just for a moment. “The right of all free-willed beings to exist. Of course the Qun runs counter to that ideal.” 

“Hm,” Hissrad leaned back. “Does it?”

“Does it not?”

“We don’t have a problem with people existing.”

“Unless they are in a shape you do not agree with, or believe in that which you do not.”

“Only some people are really people, you know. If you’re Qunari, you’re a person. A Bas...not quite the same thing.”

“You have made that abundantly clear.” the elf peered at him. “Except in the case of Saarebas, of course.”

“They’re more people than Bas are.”

“A debatable point.”

It was indeed. To be truthful, Hissrad was not certain of that particular aspect of the Qun himself. 

“So. What mistakes have you made?” Hissrad jerked the conversation to one side. The hope was that the mind would be too sluggish to respond to the sudden change in topic, and begin to fumble. 

The elf blinked, frowning. “A wide variety,” he said. 

“Such as?” when the elf didn’t answer, Hissrad was intrigued. “A death on your conscience?” 

The elf narrowed his eyes. A nerve, stricken.

“I see.” Hissrad nodded in an understanding way. And he did understand--the elf was a warrior, the Tamassrans had said as much. “Who died?”

The elf closed his mouth, lips pressing into a thin line. 

Hissrad nodded. “Right. Someone you were close to?” 

His eyes blazed. Someone very close. 

“Was it your fault?”

The elf tried to cover the expression, but he wasn’t fast enough; pure grief raced across his face for only a moment.

“Gotcha,” Hissrad finally had something under that smooth surface. “A magical accident? That’s common, right?”

“You assume a great deal,” the elf’s voice was laced with danger, and if he had not been imprisoned in a cell, Hissrad would have stayed away from this avenue of conversation.

“Do I?”

“Yes.”

“What am I assuming?” 

“That your suppositions about magic are correct.”

“So you didn’t lose someone to a magical accident?” 

“It was not how you believe,” Solas cursed himself for letting the words slip like that. Now the blasted Qunari would have more ammunition, and indeed, an expression of satisfaction spread across his face.

“So. Explain it to me.”

Solas closed his mouth. It seemed the best avenue for now. 

Hissrad shrugged, and got to his feet. “Alright. Makes no difference to me.” 

Solas could not resist. “It does.” he said quietly. “Or else you would have killed me, not slated me for conversion.”

Hissrad looked at him, and the elf stared stonily back. 

The conversation went nowhere, ultimately, but Hissrad’s mind churned in a strange way after speaking with the elf.

His dreams, likewise, had become stranger.

He stood next to a massive chessboard, opposite the huge wolf. The wolf sprawled comfortably next to him, watching the game with interest. 

“How can you live, making no choices?” the wolf asked. 

“How can you, when all your choices are wrong?”

“Who says that others make the right choices? The safest hands for my life are my own.” 

Hissrad shook his head. “You can’t know that.”

“How can I not?”

The conversation tilted, and Hissrad could no longer follow the words. The voice, however, sounded very familiar. 

The days went, for a week. Hissrad would come into the Bas-saarebas’ cell, and they would exchange their sparring match.

Solas, for his part, could feel his mind fraying at the edges.

He had done such things before, of course. The Qunari were nothing compared to Andruil, or Anaris, but one could only stand so much. 

Hissrad began to feel familiar, and Solas felt a strange kinship with the Qunari, an understanding that only a captor and captive could have. 

He found himself looking forward to Hissrad’s visits. They were, of course, the only times Solas would talk to anyone at all. 

This was a bad sign. It was an extremely bad sign, and Solas should have known better, and he did know better, but it didn’t stop the creeping familiarity from advancing upon him. 

Then there was a time when Hissrad came in, and something changed. 

Solas had a cut on one cheek, a gift given by one of his many torturers. It stung in the cold air, and Solas was sure it would get infected if not tended to. 

Hissrad spotted the wound, surely given by an overenthusiastic Sten. Without thinking of it overmuch, he reached out, and wiped away some of the blood that had oozed from the cut before it scabbed over.

Immediately, he knew that was a bad decision. The saarebas’ eyes flashed with the light of one who understands something very useful, and Hissrad scrambled to turn the situation back into something he could use.

Hissrad cupped Solas’ cheek in his hand, and in spite of himself, Solas leaned into the touch. 

He halted, coming back to himself all of a sudden. He jerked away from Hissrad. 

“Kindness grants many favors.” Solas murmured. 

“It does.” Hissrad put his hand on Solas’ shoulder. “This could be a whole lot easier, you know.”

A sadness welled in the Bas-saarebas’ eyes. “Yes. It could.” 

That sadness did not leave Hissrad's thoughts.

Hissrad should never have touched him. 

All throughout the night, all Hissrad could think about was the way Solas’ skin had felt under his palm, the blood that trickled down his pale cheek. 

It made his dreams restless, red and tumultuous, and he hardly got any sleep. 

He didn’t want to think of that light in Solas’ eyes snuffed out, didn’t want to think of that tongue hidden behind stitches, everything that he was stifled. 

He couldn’t bear to think of it. 

He hadn’t cared before. 

Every bone in Solas’ body ached, and he missed the sun. 

Hissrad’s odd behavior had made everything that much sharper, that much worse. The world became solid, everything becoming more real all of a sudden. 

His sense of time became even more distorted. Before Hissrad’s intervention, Solas could wile away hours just planning--it was nothing he hadn’t done before. This world felt like little else other than mist and fog, and it was all too easy to slip into a space in his mind where everything was far away. 

Now Hissrad had touched him, wiped the blood off his cheek, and Solas had been suddenly and horribly brought down to the world.

He needed to get out of here. He desperately needed to leave, but he still wasn’t sure how. The manipulation of Hissrad only went so far, especially when he was Solas’ only point of contact to the outside world. His hands were still restrained, as was his magic, and his agents were far away, on the mainland. 

Perhaps the Qunari’s strange kindnesses could be turned against him, like Solas hoped. 

Hissrad’s dream was one of fire and violence, a dream that seemed more like a memory than a fabrication. 

Solas walked through it, recognizing bits and pieces--he’d been to Seheron, once, or the island that was to become Seheron, a very long time ago. 

Hissrad spotted the wolf walking through the killing fields of Seheron. This was strange to him as there were no wolves on the island. 

He went to the wolf. “Why are you here?”

“Do you have a name that isn’t ‘liar?’” the wolf asked him, settling before him, its huge bulk reminding Hissrad of a dragon. 

“I’m not sure,” he admitted. 

“Perhaps you should choose one.” 

“Is that so?” 

“Why not?” the wolf got to his feet.

Solas circled Hissrad, trying to gauge his reaction to proximity. He wanted to get closer to him.

No, he needed to. A kindness went very far. Want did not enter into it.

But a pang of vicious loneliness spread through Solas, so vivid that the world around them went dark for a moment. 

Then, all of a sudden, there was no wolf--long, delicate arms encircled him from behind, and Hissrad recognized the shape immediately. 

The beautiful, beautiful Bas-saarebas.

He was so painfully thin in the real world, but here it wasn’t so. Here he was all lean muscle and a carried himself with a strange grace, like a dancer, like a king.

Hissrad didn’t even know what a dancer or a king had in common, but the elf moved like them both. 

Solas gave him a small smile.

“What are you thinking?” he asked, voice smoother than a calm lake. 

“I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone quite like you before,” Hissrad said at length, and it was true. 

Hissrad took Solas’ hands in his. 

Solas pressed closer. There was something he wanted, something he could get in the Fade that was impossible in the physical world. 

Of course, he needed Hissrad’s cooperation. But that didn’t change how good it felt to have Hissrad holding his hands. 

“Come,” Solas said. “There are far better places to be than this.” 

Hissrad smiled. “‘Course there are.”

The world shifted around them, became something green and full of verdant plants, with a sky full of stars overhead.

Hissrad had never seen plants like the ones that surrounded him now, but this was only a dream, so it mattered little.

He brought his mouth to Solas’, his lips tasting clean and sweet, like water from a mountain stream. 

He pulled unresisting Solas to him, and Solas put his arms around Hissrad’s neck. The kiss seemed to snatch the air from Solas' throat, even the dream-air of the Fade.

They broke apart at last. 

Solas smiled, and it felt strangely real. 

“Do you want to stay where you are?” he asked, and his words rang in Hissrad’s ears, clear and powerful despite the haze of the dream.

He could still taste Solas’ lips. Was that what was meant by freedom?

“I don’t know,” Hissrad admitted.

And he really, truly didn’t. 

Hissrad woke with a start. It was never good when prisoners started to feature in one’s dreams. 

When he went to visit the Bas-saarebas the next day, immediately Hissrad could tell something was off.

Solas could too. Hissrad’s questioning seemed less intent, and he paused longer between questions. Now it seemed he was actually a bit interested in the answers, rather than just needing them to advance a goal. 

Hissrad’s lips had tasted of smoke, in the Fade. Powerful and earthy, something strangely real in a world of fog and vision. 

Solas tried to avoid staring at Hissrad’s lips. 

Hissrad looked down at the Bas-saarebas, and could not help but remember their time together in the dream. 

“I’ll come back tomorrow,” he informed the Bas-saarebas.

The Bas-saarebas merely looked at him, eyes narrowed. Hissrad could feel his eyes on him until he closed the door on the cell. 

Hissrad immediately went to the Tamassran in charge of the prison.

“I think I’m--getting less than objective with this one,” he confided in the Tamassran. 

She looked at him, searching.

“How so?”

“I--” he hesitated. He didn’t want to discuss the strange dreams. “I think he wants me to help get him out of Par Vollen,” he said at last.

She narrowed her eyes. 

“And are you going to?”

“No,” Hissrad said immediately.

“Do you fear corruption?”

Corruption would mean the Solas’ death. Suddenly, Hissrad realized that he could not accuse him of corruption, he could not be responsible for his death. At least, not in that way.

“No, Ma’am,” he said instead. He really, really should mention the saarebas figuring in his dream. For some reason, what he said instead was; “I think I’m still having...problems. From Seheron.”

The Tamassran’s face softened. 

“Oh,” she nodded. “I see. I can assign another to his case--forgive me, I should have considered it sooner.”

“No harm done,” Hissrad said. 

It was more of a blow than Solass had been anticipating when the next day came, and it was not Hissrad who came to interrogate him. It was someone else.   
Hissrad seemed to have abandoned him.

No matter. If the Qunari would not help, then Solas would have to do this on his own.

He had escaped cages before.

This would involve a level of cooperation. If he was to escape, he would need to somehow remove himself from this cell, and the only way to do that was to submit himself to the Qun. 

His stomach twisted at the thought, the masks the Saarebas wore, the chains and everything else...but worse would be if he died. 

So he told the interrogator what he wanted to hear, and after some days of pouring out (incorrect) information, he came before the Tamassran at last.

“Saarebas,” the Tamassran looked down at him, her arms folded. “Will you submit to the wisdom of the Qun?”

Solas looked up at her. There was only one way out, and that way was through.

‘I will,” he murmured. “I will, I will, I will--”

The Tamassran smiled. 

Her smile made him want to vomit. She so resembled the agents of the Evanuris, with their false cheer and poisonous words. 

He almost worried that she would see through the lies, but it seemed that she never did. Now, he was quite adept at lying, it was true. Even so, Solas almost wanted to laugh. How foolish the Tamassrans were, to think that a forced conversion was a true one. Lying to escape pain was nothing more than a delaying tactic. 

If Solas did not destroy the Qun, then they would surely destroy themselves eventually, brought down by those they had tried to subjugate.

They brought him to another room, as evidently becoming a saarebas involved a great deal of preparation.

The qamek was a unique pain Solas had not felt in some time.

While he was limp with qamek, shuddering, his heart hammering, the Tamassran approached him with a needle and red thread, and a mask, and chains. 

The needle pierced his lips, and Solas had the sudden, wild urge to scream, but he could not. 

The mask over his face reduced his vision to slits, and he was glad for a moment that he did not have horns. Surely cutting them off would be painful. 

The chains were heavy, made of metal enchanted with a wide variety of spells meant to stifle magic. 

“There,” the Tamassran smiled as she looked at him. “Now you are free of your demons, Saarebas.” 

Solas’ lips ached, and his chest still burned where the qamek had touched it. 

He felt an old urge, one that had last risen in the heat of battle--

The urge to tear out someone’s throat with his teeth.

He quelled this urge. It was not a good instinct, especially not in a delicate situation such as this. He merely looked at her, made his expression as blank as possible, try to reveal nothing of what he felt. 

She gestured to a Qunari next to her.

“Arvaraad,” she said. “Here is your Saarebas.”

The Arvaraad was slender, for an Arvaraad, with skin the color of clouds heavy with snow. His white hair was pulled into a tight braid at the back of his head, and in one hand he held the rod which doubtless connected to the chains and enchantments that bound Solas. 

He gestured, and Solas followed him. 

On the way out of the prison, Solas saw Hissrad.

Hissrad would not forget the look in Saarebas’ eyes, not ever.

He raised his eyes, partially hidden behind their mask, to Hissrad’s, and for a moment Hissrad saw something horrible in those eyes, something vicious and powerful and cold. Then he lowered his gaze, and whatever the expression had been, it was gone again. He walked away, a pace behind the Arvaraad, and Hissrad tore his eyes away, to look at anything else.

Hissrad walked away, and tried to put the Saarebas out of his mind.

Solas was surprisingly unhappy to see Hissrad go, a flicker of sorrow before he smothered it by remembering that the Qunari had done nothing but make the situation worse. 

Then he was out of the prison, and under the open sky again, and for a moment, everything in the world felt right.


	2. Middle

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yep. still fucked up

Hissrad had another mission.

“You’re to go south, Hissrad,” the Tamassran said. 

“Yes, Ma’am,” Hissrad agreed. 

So he got on a ship, skirted Tevinter, and got off again in a port in Nevarra. They didn’t want him heading to Kirkwall, not with the crap the former Arishok had pulled there. 

That was a subject that Hissrad was more than willing to complain about, that the Arishok had been both killed by Lady Hawke and soundly rejected by Par Vollen. It was an issue not least because it meant hardly any Qunari could go to Kirkwall undetected--even a non-kossith convert couldn’t be there too long. They were incredibly suspicious on anything even resembling Qunari there, and it was all thanks to the Arishok being an idiot and letting the Chantry goad him into attacking them. 

In any case, it made an entire city-state off limits to Hissrad and the Qunari in general, which was infuriating. Hissrad tried to put it out of his mind and headed furhter south, towards Orlais and Ferelden.

The south was strange. Hissrad--now the Iron Bull, as that was less conspicuous a name--made his way through the borders of Tevinter, down further into the Free Marches and finally into the north of Ferelden, picking up mercenaries along the way. 

Even though he’d avoided Tevinter, he didn’t seem to be able to avoid its people. One of the earliest--and still the best--additions to the Chargers was Krem, a soldier from up north who’d come fleeing a whole lot of trouble. 

Next was Skinner, the girl from the Alienage who’d killed quite a few people and now got paid for doing it. There was Dalish, the Dalish mage who Iron Bull was pretty sure was actually a Dalish spy, but he never found any proof about it so he just went along with her story about her Keeper ‘wanting her to see the world.’ Stitches, the only half-decent medic for miles, Rocky, who liked to blow things up a really inordinate amount--a whole cast of extremely colorful people that the Iron Bull would never have met had he not come to the south. 

It all almost made him forget about the elven Saarebas, and those frightening gray eyes, and the strange figure in his dreams. 

Solas found himself in a much better position outside of the cell than inside, despite being bound in a collar and hidden behind a mask. 

Even so, the Qun made his lungs burn with the unspoken rage inside of him. He felt unclean here, as if filth began to seep into his soul. The way that most of the people flinched away from him, frightened even of someone bound in chains and leashed in more than one way, made red anger rise in his chest. He could not even speak to them, yet they were terrified.

Magic was punished and rejected, something so vital spat upon as if it were cursed. So many people convinced of magic’s evils, could not even see the magic in the world around them as anything but horror and death. 

Yet despite their hatred of magic, they continued to use it, condoning slavery of a person’s very essence while all the while denying that it was for anything but the mage’s own good. It was vile, how magic was built into their society in so many ways.

Solas had been called upon to help heal the sick, build things, move heavy objects or simply to light fires when the rains made it too difficult, and yet they detested it at the same time they used it. No wonder their society was the way that it was. They hated something so vital about the world that they couldn’t help but turn their hatred on everything else.

Then there were the Arvaraads. 

They were the keepers of Saarebas, hulking and stony-faced. They were all of a similar height, with similar long white hair. Solas strongly suspected that the Qunari practiced selective breeding, or at least picked people with specific physical characteristics to do specific jobs. Many of the people had a strange homogenaeity about them, in that there would be similarities between people who worked the same jobs, as if they came from the same family. All the bakers had large noses, the blacksmiths all had dark hair. 

Solas would have been more fascinated by the cultural peculiarities if he weren’t currently bound in chains and still in need of a method of escape.

Solas’ own Arvaraad was taciturn and communicated largely in grunts. He seemed to enjoy forcefully yanking on Solas’ chains, but Solas really wasn’t sure, as the man didn’t appear to display any outward emotions at all. For all Solas knew, Arvaraad training involved beating the emotions out of people. It wouldn’t surprise him.

It was during an errand in repairing a dam that Solas found something that could help him escape.

The work was simple, only hampered by the Arvaraad’s glowers and the painful use of the control rod. Otherwise, the repairs required neither special skill nor a great deal of power. The dam could not be repared without magic, otherwise it would have to be destroyed and rebuilt, so the nearby village had enlisted the help of a mage. 

Of course, Solas could not help remembering that in Elvhenan, such an issue could have been solved in a moment or two by any who lived nearby. Even a society with less magic but with a more healthy relationship with mages would have less trouble with such a minor issue.

It was on their return trip that Solas’ eye landed on the plant. He couldn’t help a surprised intake of breath. He recognized the distinctive pale petals and delicate scent of dreamrose. 

Dreamrose was a powerful drug, meant for putting someone to sleep and keeping them there. In Elvhenan, it had been used as a painkiller if nothing else was handy. In larger doses, it could kill--however, that was for elves, who were smaller and weighed less than the average Qunari. 

He lagged behind the Arvaraad for just a moment. He stooped and snared a handful of the plant from the ground, tucking it into his belt. The Arvaraad noticed his lollygagging and paused, grabbing his arm and pulling him forward, but it was too late. Solas already had the poison on him. 

It was fortunate that Solas knew his way around poisons, and sleight of hand. He had used both to great effect at some time or another. 

Poison was one half of the plan; the other was getting the use of his magic back, even a small amount. Playing the beaten Saarebas was an excellent way to try and accomplish that.

He ducked his head to try and avoid the gaze of the Arvaraad. This was not difficult; the mask prevented anyone from seeing the majority of his expression or where his eyes were located. The Arvaraad didn’t seem to suspect anything, but Solas kept an eye on him. The Arvaraad’s hand never strayed towards the control rod, however, and the worst Solas had to show was a hand-shaped bruise on his arm.

They didn’t like to keep the Saarebas together, either for fear of conspiracy or for the effect of so much magic in one place. As it was, Arvaraads and their Saarebas were generally isolated in small dwellings, away from the rest of the populace. The other Qunari lived in communal dorms segregated by occupation. 

The dreamrose would do Solas no good if he didn’t have an escape plan. Fortunately, they were close to the harbor, and there were always foreign ships docked there. Par Vollen traded with several neighboring countries, and Solas had been mentally cataloguing which ships were there for weeks now. 

He would have to wait until the early morning to steal away, as Stens and other workers were active until extremely late at night. Fortunately, a rash of nightmares amongst the populace had left the majority of them--Stens and Tamassrans especially--exhausted and less likely to focus on their work. 

The Arvaraad himself was similarly plagued by such nightmares. Constant horrors assaulted his sleeping mind, demons and vicious animals and falling dreams and every nightmare Solas could conjure from the Fade. The man had not had a decent night’s sleep since the first day Solas was assigned to him. Hopefully, this would also increase his vulnerability to the dreamrose.

The thought of the Arvaraad’s dreams reminded Solas, abrurptly, of Hissrad’s own dreams. How complex and strange they had been, the curious ways Hissrad had seen the world, filtered through an intelligent and canny mind…

Just as soon as thoughts of Hissrad appeared, Solas pushed them away. That was not productive.

It was a small matter to slip a crushed leaf of dreamrose into the Arvaraad’s water. It took only a few hours for the drug to take affect, and when it did, the Arvaraad collapsed into his bed, eyes closed as soon as he hit the pallet.

Solas wasn’t sure the effect the dreamrose would have on Qunari; on elves it produced a sleep so deep it could almost be considered a coma. It seemed to have the same effect on the Arvaraad; he could not be awoken. Solas retrieved the control rod, and snapped it in half. He took a breath as his magic was returned to him, and he sighed in relief.

The ship that Solas infiltrated was a tiny thing, meant to carry spices across the ocean. Solas slipped aboard with ease; their watchman was a drunkard and paying no attention, and Solas knew a spell or two for a quiet step.

He secreted himself away in a far corner, amidst the supplies, and awaited morning. Solas would not allow himself to relax until his feet were on dry land, and that dry land was not Par Vollen. 

When the first fingers of dawn crept across the sky, the clouds were tinged with red, which was not the best of omens. Even so, the ship began to move, and Solas watched the Par Vollen shore recede in the distance with a sense of relief and a thirst to complete his plans. 

He removed the stitches from his mouth, partially by knife and partially by magic, healing the wounds with a slight spell. The mask was easily removed with another knife, the leather straps giving way with some effort, and the chains could be undone with a well placed force spell or two. 

Finally, he was free of Par Vollen.

Solas had two goals:

One, to find and then unlock his orb somehow. The orb was the only artifact with the power he needed, but he’d stored it far away from his resting place, and there was no guarantee that he would be able to use it. He was still worn out from Uthenera and the trials in Par Vollen, so this would be very difficult, and he might need assistance.

A very distant second, and one he only came to upon due consideration, was to find Hissrad. He really shouldn’t, and it would be better to avoid him altogether, but Solas felt strangely drawn to the man. There was a potential in his spirit, an intelligence and independence that could be fostered, and perhaps there was a worthy ally in him somewhere.

He did not want to admit to himself that it was possible he missed Hissrad. 

So, he began the journey south. 

 

Iron Bull found Solas in a dingy tavern residing on the outsirts of a border town in the Free Marches. The tavern was crowded and smokey, the perfect place for malcontents, miscreants, and malingerers of all kinds. The Chargers were just staying there a few nights, recovering from a big job. 

Bull hadn’t recognized him at first, just saw the pale elf wrapped up in a green cloak and carrying a staff on his back. The moment Solas turned, however, Bull caught a glimpse of that sharp profile, and he knew who it was.

“S--Solas!” Bull exclaimed, surprise making him almost say _Saarebas_ , but he stopped just in time.

Solas was genuinely surprised to see Hissrad here. He pressed his lips together, unsure how to respond--whether to admit he had escaped, or to play along with a fiction.

“What are you doing here?” 

Solas shrugged, and decided to lie. “The Tamassrans believed you might require magical assistance,” he explained smoothly.

“Huh,” Bull leaned back. “That’s weird. They don’t normally send Saarebas anywhere without an escort.”

“They have been growing concerned with the south,” Solas said. “They felt that one skilled in magic would be better able to assist a Ben-hassrath.”

Bull peered at him. Solas avoided his eyes, glancing at the ground, the image of an obedient Saarebas.

It made Bull’s heart do something funny in his chest, before he regained his senses. 

“Right,” he nodded. “I guess that makes sense.”

He was fairly sure Solas was lying. He’d never heard of a Saarebas being let anywhere without an Arvaraad. They were supposed to kill themselves if something happened to the Arvaraad and there was no replacement.

On the other hand, Bull couldn’t know everything about the Qun. No one could. For all Bull knew, there were plenty of Saarebas spies down in the south, and Par Vollen just liked to keep it quiet for fear that it would encourage other Saarebas to try to escape.

Solas looked better than he had in Par Vollen. He was pale, but his skin was not nearly as sickly white as it had been, and he was no longer so painfully thin. His face was still sharp, but not gaunt. 

“What do you call yourself here?” Solas asked. He could doubtless not go by ‘Hissrad’ in the south.

“Iron Bull.”

In spite of himself, a tiny smile graced Solas’ lips.

“Appropriate.” 

Bull smiled in return. “Yeah. That was kind of the reasoning.” 

So, Bull brought him to meet the Chargers. Many years later, Bull would sorely regret not simply turning around and leaving Solas alone. 

“Chargers, this is Solas,” Bull gestured to all of them, as they sat around a table in the corner of the tavern. “Solas, this is the Chargers.”

Krem’s observant eyes did not miss the scars around Solas’ lips. “New recruit, Chief?”

“Nah. I worked with him in Par Vollen.”

Solas’ eyes flicked to Bull’s. He supposed ‘interrogation’ might as well be a working relationship with a Ben-hassrath. Krem didn't miss the look, and frowned, eyes going from the scars on Solas' lips to the staff on his back.

Bull sat down, and after a moment, so did Solas, half-blending into the shadows.

“You a Qunari, too?” Krem asked. 

Solas shrugged. “In a manner of speaking.” 

Something in Solas’ voice seemed to say that it would be a bad idea to press the subject, so Krem let it drop. 

So that was how Solas came to join them. He helped them out with a job or two—he was a fair enough healer, enough to get people back on their feet, anyway, and a good hand with barrier spells. He didn't like fighting, but never complained. In fact, he hardly spoke to the Chargers at all. He didn't want to give anything away to Iron Bull, not wanting any word of his activities to return to Par Vollen, but neither did he want to seem overly suspicious. 

“He’s weird, Chief,” Krem admitted after doing a job with him. “And we’re a pretty weird bunch.”

Bull shrugged. “He’s a mage from Par Vollen. They’re all weird.” 

Krem narrowed his eyes at Bull, knowing the rumors about what happened to Qunari mages, but he didn’t want to ask. 

Solas walked in all their dreams. He wanted to know the people who had willingly joined Hissrad; tried to find out the caliber of individuals he was dealing with. None of them seemed to be likely converts to the Qun, and they were an intriguing lot. Two elves, a Tevinter, a dwarf, numerous humans--one of the elves was even a mage, even though she refused to talk about it. She would give Solas strange looks when she thought he wasn't looking, half-afraid, half-pitying. Considering the marks on her face, he knew she wouldn't feel so pitying if she knew who he really was. 

He worried somewhat for the mage. He wouldn't want her to share the same fate as he did, especially since she was less likely to be able to free herself. He resolved to keep a watch on the entire crew, and ensure they would never fall prey to the Qun, no matter what Hissrad intended. 

In Iron Bull's dreams, the white wolf began to feature again. He knew at this point it was connected to Solas, though he thought it was his own mind conjuring it up. The thought of Solas weighed heavy on his mind even during waking hours, the sight of those accusing gray eyes not leaving him. 

Krem and the other Chargers tried to make Solas feel welcome, but he stayed politely distant. That was alright—Grim didn't even talk, after all, and none of them were exactly the most open with their personal lives. They mostly tried to leave well enough alone and maybe lend Solas a hand when he needed it.

Solas would vanish for long stretches, going missing for an entire afternoon or night, but he always returned. He went further and further afield, trying to seek out friendly spirits, or any points of contact who could help him. 

So things went, for some time. 

Bull's dreams became stranger and stranger, but there was one he remembered the most strongly.

He was in a tavern, blurred faces all around him, everything foggy and strange like a faded oil painting.

Solas sat down in front of him. His features alone were not blurred.

“What are you doing here?” Bull asked. 

Solas tilted his head to one side, examining him. His eyes were gray, just the color of the clouds before a thunderstorm. That seemed odd to Bull, but he wasn't sure why. 

Solas found Bull's dreams somewhat changed by his time in the south. The settings were more southern, the people more detailed, as if he were starting to realize that they weren't the automatons the Qun wanted them to be.

His image in the dream was more or less how he was in the physical world. Even the missing eye (which was new), was gone, as it was when waking. He had a very good map of his physical form, which not everyone did. 

He didn't answer Bull's question. If he spoke, he would give himself away as a foreign entity in Bull's mind. Just his image alone would seem like a normal dream. 

The dream began to blur around them, their surroundings going dark. Solas recognized the familiar trappings pf Par Vollen, and stood up to leave.

“Wait,” Bull said.

Solas glanced over his shoulder at him. 

“It wasn't the same without you,” Bull said, his tone hazy and vaguely confused, like he had misplaced something and was trying to remember where he put it. “You shouldn't have stayed there.”

Solas slowly shook his head. Bull was correct, he certainly shouldn't have been in Par Vollen. It was a shame waking Bull didn't have the same understanding. 

On impulse, as it seemed the right thing to do, he reached out, and touched Bull's shoulder. Bull covered his hand with his own, and the world around them continued to blur, like an oil painting. Warmth suffused the dream, the sun seeming to shine through even into the Fade. 

Kindness grants many favors.

The dream shifted, a sign Bull's mind was pulling away, and Solas retreated. Too much consistency within the dream might tip Bull off to something being unusual as well. 

Being with the Chargers was a strange experience. It let Solas see more of the waking world, of course, and to plot his next move.

He found himself wanting to linger in Bull's dreams. They felt warm, familiar, almost welcoming. 

Bull began to grow used to Solas' presence. It wasn't the same as it had been in Par Vollen, of course, and it was interesting seeing Solas from a different perspective. He was a talented warrior, and a fair healer. 

There was an elegance about Solas that Bull had not seen when he was imprisoned. A certain grace, an inner confidence that shone in everything he did. Bull found himself thinking of those gray eyes often, remembering the fierceness in them, and missing it. 

He shouldn't have. He knew—Solas was a Saarebas, and Iron Bull a Ben-hassrath, and it was so dangerous for them to be so fascinated by each other, but he couldn't help it. Solas walked in his dreams, and he didn't mind. 

Solas could not stay with them forever, however, and soon he had to move on.

One morning, they awoke to find Solas gone without a trace, his things packed, and not even a note for their trouble.

“Wonder where he ran off to?” Krem asked, a slight frown on his face. 

Bull wasn’t sure. 

Then, Bull got a letter from Par Vollen, and everything was put into perspective.

The letter was an urgent one. Bull read the letter once, then read it again. 

That Saarebas is Tal-vashoth. It escaped the Qun. You are in grave danger, Hissrad.

Bull clenched the letter in his hands. 

He should never have believed him, but he’d wanted to.

He could send a letter back, explaining how Solas had been here and had vanished, but that seemed like it might have the kind of result that would end badly, both for him and for Solas. Bull didn’t want to deal with that.

“Something wrong, Chief?” Krem asked, seeing Bull's expression change.

Bull shook his head. “No,” he said. “It's okay.”

He could figure out how to deal with this if he had some time. Maybe he could come up with a story, get both him and Solas right with the Qun—there had to be something they could do that wouldn't end up with the both of them dead, or broken, or Tal-vashoth. 

But then it was that there was no time left in the world at all. Everything came apart on the day that the sky shattered. 

It seemed all of Solas’ plans as of late were going to result in disasters. Between the Qunari and now the Breach, he was half-convinced he should go back to Uthenera and try again in another thousand years.

But no--he stayed, for otherwise the world truly would be destroyed, and it would be his fault. 

Maxwell Trevelyan was a well-meaning if not overly bright man, with a large heart and a soft smile. 

Solas’ mark was on his hand, a violent outpouring of power that came from the orb and welded itself to poor Trevelyan. The man was doomed, unless Solas could work out a way to reverse the process. 

He gave his aid to the fledgling Inquisition. He was in danger here, as an apostate, but it was nothing compared to the Qunari. If the Qun could not hold him, the Circles had not a chance in the world.

However, the company to be had within the Inquisition was troubling in its own way. 

“So, where’d you get those scars on your mouth from, Chuckles?” 

Varric Tethras was irritatingly persistent and much more talkative than other dwarves Solas had known. He spotted the scars on Solas' mouth and knew them immediately for Saarebas scars, and kept trying to pry the story out of him at every given opportunity.

“That is not a topic for discussion.”

The coldness in his voice did not dissuade Varric in the slightest. 

“Saw some people with scars like those back in Kirkwall,” Varric cajoled. “Tal-vashoth, mostly. You know, runaways from the Qun.” 

Solas pressed his lips together. 

“Just saying, I knew a couple.” 

“I am _not_ Tal-vashoth.”

He was no part of the Qunari at all. 

Varric simply looked at him, expression shrewd. “Sure, I mean, if you were, you’d probably be making a lot more noise about it.”

Very likely.

“What do you mean, Varric?” Maxwell asked, glancing over his shoulder at the pair of them. 

“Well, Qunari mages always kinda stand out,” Varric explained.

Cassandra paled several shades. She knew exactly what Varric was talking about.

“Qunari?” Maxwell blinked. “But Solas is an elf.”

“There can be elf Qunari,” Varric said. “Converts—Viddethari, I think they call them.”

“I am not Viddethari,” Solas could not stop himself from snapping. “I am not Tal-vashoth, or Qunari.” 

Varric shrugged. “Alright, whatever you say,” he raised his hands. When Cassandra and Maxwell's attention was turned away again, he glanced back at Solas, expression calculating. 

Fortunately, for all of Varric's attempts to interrogate him, Solas managed to avoid the worst of the questioning. The Breach distracted them, and then there was the distraction of new companions.

Vivienne knew Saarebas scars for what they were immediately. She looked at Solas with a strange, motherly concern that chafed him. 

“You are an apostate, dear?” she asked him. 

“That is correct, Enchanter. I did not train in your Circles.”

“No, I can see that.” her expression was of such pitying sympathy it made him bristle. “This seems rather outside your experience,” 

“Many things are outside the experience of many mages,” Solas said, resisting the urge to grind his teeth. “Your Circles create boundaries where none need exist.”

“I see why you might believe that, darling, but it is better to have boundaries between ourselves and the demons.” she steadfastly did not look at the scars on his lips. “A locked door might be the door to a prison, or protection. Remember that.” 

“I shall endeavor to do so.” 

He frightened Sera. She'd been in Kirkwall, and like Varric, knew Saarebas scars for what they were. He didn't mean to frighten her, but it seemed that his combined magic and history were enough to do so. 

He did try to speak to her in Elvhen, once or twice. It never worked. 

“Look,” she snapped the second time he did it. “I don't care that you wanna be all elfy cos of Qun rubbish or whatever—just don't do it at me, right? It's backwards and boring—if it makes you feel better, whatever, I don't care, but I don't wanna hear it.”

The others all seemed to regard him with that combination of fear, and pity, and sympathy, treating him like glass or prodding him to tell them what happened to him. The only one who didn't was Blackwall, who seemed to have too much on his mind to interrogate anyone about their past.

He knew that if he had been any other apostate, they wouldn't have cared so much. He tolerated it, even so. Sympathy, however misplaced, was more useful than hatred or antagonism. 

Then they went to the Storm Coast, and everything broke again. 

Solas hadn’t been there when Trevelyan had made the agreement with one of the mercenaries, did not even know the specific mercenary company that had been the one giving aid. 

However, that was made quite clear when the battle was over, and Trevelyan went to greet the mercenary leader. Iron Bull's silhouette was obvious from across the beach, and Solas identified several of the Chargers.

Solas' gut twisted, and he hung back, hoping to not be noticed. With luck, Trevelyan would send them on their way, and Solas could avoid encountering them for some time.

No such luck. 

The Chargers left, but Trevelyan brought Bull over, to introduce him to them. Bull spotted Solas almost immediately, and his eye was on him as Trevelyan introduced him to varric and Cassandra.

“And this is Solas, our--”

“We know each other,” Bull looked at Solas, his eye narrowed. 

“You do?” Trevelyan looked from Solas to Bull and back again, biting his lip at the cold expressions on their faces. 

Solas inclined his head.

“We have met before.”

Trevelyan blinked, surprised at the hostility in the air. “W-well, good,” he managed. “Excellent.”

There were some bandits on the Coast to take care of next, as well as some Rifts, so Trevelyan lead them to do that. Meanwhile, Bull and Solas watched each other.

“So,” Bull came over to Solas, out of the earshot of the others. “You came down south to help me, huh?” 

“Do you really believe that I would stay in Qunari lands?” Solas demanded. “They imprisoned me. You were part of it.”

“You lied to me about it,” Bull said.

“Why would I not have?”

There was absolutely no reason not to lie, Bull knew, but he still felt strangely hurt over it. He really had no right to feel any kind of way about it, as Solas was there entirely against his will and Bull knew that, but it didn’t stop the way he felt.

“Good point,” Bull grunted. 

“Has your time in the south changed you?” Solas tilted his head to one side. “You willingly assisted the Tamassran in her efforts.”

Bull didn't want to continued this particular line of discussion. “How’d you escape?” 

“Why would I tell you that?”

Varric spotted the two of them talking, and evidently their body language made him concerned enough to come over.

“So,” he said. “You two already know each other, huh?” 

“Yeah,” Bull said. And then, before Solas could stop him, he added “In Par Vollen.”

Varric paused, glanced from Bull, then to Solas. “...right.” he said. “I think I see what's going on here.”

“Do you indeed, Master Tethras?” Solas asked, his voice icy. 

“I know a little about the Ben-hassrath,” Varric said, sliding smoothly in between the two of them. “Spent some time in Kirkwall.”

Bull raised his eyebrow. “That must have been interesting.” goodness knew the Antaam wanted the disaster in Kirkwall forgotten as soon as possible. An Arishok bested by a human mage? Shameful. 

Neither Bull nor Solas missed that Varric tried to change the subject as quickly as possible. Varric also got between the two of them whenever he could, quietly keeping them apart. 

Solas got the idea that Varric was trying to protect him. He needn't have bothered—Solas spent as much time as he could far away from Iron Bull. There was no need for them to be any closer than they had to be.

Bull didn’t mention Solas in his next report to the Qunari.

He should have, especially given later events, and he promised himself that he would, just...not yet.

He owed Solas one, even if it was just a headstart. It was the end of the world, after all. 

Against his better judgement, Solas walked in Bull's dreams again. He was familiar, a point of confidence in a world gone astray. 

“You just never stay in one place,” Bull told him, in a dream that took place by a lakeside, under a sunny sky. 

“Do I not?” Solas' shape was inconsistent, as it was in the way of dreams. One moment when Bull looked at him, he would see a young man, face hidden by long auburn hair, only shining gray eyes visible. In another moment, Bull would be by the side of a huge wolf, and the next, it would be the Solas he knew.

The eyes never changed, and it comforted Bull. He was glad to see that the storm inside Solas had not been tempered. He shouldn't have been relieved, but such thoughts of doubt didn't occur in dreams. 

Bull reached out, and touched the wolf's side. “No,” he said. “You know, running isn't the answer to everything.”   
Solas moved away from Bull. “I do not always run.” he grinned in a wolf's way, showing a mouth full of long teeth. Bull was not phased. “I rather more often do the opposite, in fact.” 

The world around them grew cold for a moment, the light seeming to be filtered through a dungeon window. 

“Of course, sometimes running is the only option left.” 

Bull gripped the Solas' shoulder. “Yeah, I can see that.” he understood. He understood so deeply that it hurt, but he couldn't find the words to say it.   
Things were alright, if a bit tense, for the next few months. Krem approached Solas, once or twice, presumably to try and head off tension between him and Iron Bull.

“Look, I know you and the Chief have—a history, I guess--” Krem began one evening.  
Solas merely looked at him. 

“Just...are you two gonna get into it?” Krem asked. “'cause that's the last thing we need.”

Krem, for his part, was lost on the exact relationship between Solas and the Iron Bull. He'd pieced together that 'working with each other' was more 'interrogation,' but he couldn't figure out why they hadn't tried to kill each other yet. 

“I am capable of maintaining a working relationship with someone I have little affinity for,” Solas informed him, voice cold. 

Krem could feel a headache coming on. “Alright,” he said, raising his hands. “Fine, sounds good. As long as you two don't stab each other, I guess it's alright.”

Solas turned away, assuming the conversation was over.

“Just...”

Solas glanced back at him, eyebrows raised. 

“Just...the two of you hold it together till the world stops ending, alright?” Krem asked, voice almost cajoling. 

Solas frowned. “Of course.” 

Vivienne's interest in Solas seemed to redouble. She was intolerably and bizarrely mothering, constantly inquiring after him in a condescending sort of way. 

“Your talents are wasted outside of the Circle, my dear,” she said. “It is a shame you were so far away.”

“You assume that I would join the Circle had I the ability to do so, Enchanter?” Solas restrained himself from rolling his eyes. If it wasn't one cage, it was another. At this rate the Dalish would be more acceptable, and that was even if they knew him as Fen'harel. 

“I understand the necessity for protection,” Vivienne told him. “Though some might claim otherwise, the Circles protected mages against all who might harm them.” and she glanced significantly at his scars again. 

Despite her clear lack of approval for the treatment of Qunari mages, she and Iron Bull got along famously. As a matter of fact, Bull got along fairly well with everyone in Trevelyan's merry little band. Solas tried not to resent it, as they didn't have the firsthand experience of Ben-hassrath that he did, but it was rather difficult.

Things became strange again when Trevelyan met with the Grand Enchanter. Some sort of magic had been worked, and it seemed that the free mages were less free than before, now under the control of a magister. 

Bull kind of understood the impulse. No one ever said that mages were the most logical kind of people—still, a Tevinter Magister? It was pretty stupid. 

It was after that that they met Dorian Pavus.

Dorian Pavus’ addition to the party was a bit awkward, to say the least.

He was beautiful, and a mage, and Tevinter, a combination that resulted in a personality like black powder and a tongue like a whip. 

For Dorian’s part, the other Inquisition members proved somewhat less than friendly. Trevelyan was nice enough, but Vivienne held nothing but open disdain. Cassandra was alright, as was Blackwall and Sera and Varric, but all were extremely busy. This was understandable, of course. 

The most intriguing members were also the most difficult to pry information from. 

There was Iron Bull, the Qunari. 

Then there was Solas, the runaway Saarebas.

Dorian could spot a former Saarebas from a mile away, all Tevinter mages could. Even elves or humans had distinctive signs (the scars around the mouth, just for starters) that were hard to conceal from the practiced eye.

Dorian was certain that Varric, Cassandra and Vivienne at least knew of the Saarebas history of the strange apostate. He knew that Iron Bull did, of course. Solas never spoke of it, nor did anyone else. 

Dorian wasn't quite sure how to act around Solas. The elf was standoffish and rude, but Dorian could hardly blame him. Escaping from the Qun didn't exactly result in the friendliest of personalities. 

Iron Bull was even more of a difficulty. A spy from a hostile nation? That would be problematic at the best of times. 

Once, while they were on a mission with Trevelyan, the talk turned to mages. 

“Perhaps you would prefer me masked and leashed?” Dorian said, his tone disdainful.

Bull’s thoughts came to a sudden, grinding halt. 

Solas, his lips stitched closed, gray eyes intense and accusing behind a Saarebas mask. 

“That’s not something to joke about,” he told Dorian.

“Why? Because it already happened to one mage in our party?” Dorian’s words were more biting, and Bull really regretted Solas’ involvement in all this. Sera and Trevelyan fell silent, staring at Dorian. 

“Yeah. That’s it.”

Dorian fell silent. His expression was a strange mix of pity and suspicion, and Bull hated it, but had no means by which to counter it. 

“What are you two talking about?” Trevelyan asked. 

Dorian gestured towards his own mouth. “Those scars on Solas' face—they're Saarebas scars. He escaped from the Qun.” 

“Look, it's his business, not yours,” Bull said. “Especially when he's not even here to talk about it.”

“And if the Qunari had their way, he'd never talk about anything,” Dorian snapped.

“Enough,” Bull said. “Look, Pavus, just...don't, okay?” 

Something in Iron Bull's eye made Dorian fall silent. 

Things remained more or less the same, until Trevelyan went to Redcliffe, and evidently, all havoc was let loose.

Solas was not overpleased with the outcome of the mission to Redcliffe.

He should have known that Trevelyan would not free the mages, not truly. No one else in this world seemed inclined to do so.

At least the mages were out from under Alexius’ heel. 

Solas had not been surprised by their allegiance. He’d seen it before--people who were born into captivity often sought it again, even after being granted freedom. The worst cages were those within the mind as well as those that confined the body. 

There was no time to think on it, however. The Breach was closed, and at first, it seemed like all would be well.

Then the Templars came. Then the dragon. Then Corypheus.

Haven was lost, and for a while, they thought Trevelyan was, too. Solas knew better—he could feel the magic of the mark, even if he couldn't control it. Trevelyan eventually made his way to their little camp on the mountainside, weary and injured, but alive.

Maxwell, to everyone’s relief, was alive and would heal, given time. The rest of them were not much better off, however, as they were all stranded in the mountains.  
Then something very interesting happened.

Maxwell lead them to a castle, or rather, Solas told them all the way to find it, and Trevelyan took the path he indicated.

Skyhold was magnificent, a towering structure on the mountainside. 

“How did you find this place?” Bull asked, coming up beside Solas.

Solas gave him a sidelong glance. “I looked.”

“Is that so? How?”

“Why do you wish to know?” his gaze turned steely. “Do you wish to tell the Qunari more of my skills, so you might return me to them?” 

Though Bull's dreams were a familiar place, Solas also knew that Bull had no intention of leaving the Qun soon, or at all. 

Bull sighed. “That wasn't my decision.” 

“Of course not. You could never make a decision to take issue with.” 

“I just wanted to know how you found this thing.”

“As Ben-hassrath, you understand if I believe you have an ulterior motive.” 

Bull folded his arms. He couldn't argue that. 

At first, they were all kept busy by rebuilding Skyhold. There was little tension in that, everyone too exhausted to fight amongst themselves. They met a new companion, a young man named Cole. 

Solas found Cole comforting. A spirit, likely of Compassion, who had taken the shape of a young man. He was a point of familiarity in a world that had been turned so alien. 

As for Iron Bull's part, things went more or less smoorthly for several months, apart from curious dreams. Solas kept walking inside Bull's mind, still trying to find information, but wanting that strange familiarity.

Solas knew it was the furthest thing from healthy, or wise, to search Bull's dreams so often. He simply longed for a familiar point of contact, someone who knew him, something that didn't make him feel like he was falling.


	3. End

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> aaaand that dubious consent kicks in right about here--it's dubious because of the very, very weird nature of the relationship, no one is really forced into anything tho

Then the Qunari sent Bull another missive. He took the missive to Trevelyan.

“The Qunari wanna meet with you,” Iron Bull said. 

Maxwell frowned, his brow furrowed.

“Why?”

“See about some Venatori they want dealt with—and maybe an alliance.”

“An alliance?” Trevelyan looked intrigued. 

Bull nodded. “Yeah—they want our help with something first.”

“Of course!” Trevelyan readily agreed, as Bull knew he was likely to do. He could easily see the strategic point of the Qunari reaching out their arm while the Inquisition was just starting to become a major power.

He wasn't sure how he felt about it.

He did, however, feel that it was only fair to warn Solas.

“So, we’re gonna see about an alliance with the Qunari,” Bull said.

Solas was silent. 

“Just thought you should know.”

“Why?” Solas said. 

Bull shrugged. “Figured you ought to.”

“Do you believe I would return to them?” Solas looked at him, and Bull caught a glimpse of the steely fury hiding behind those gray eyes. “Or do you simply wish to give me the time to run?” 

“Do whichever you think is best.” Bull shrugged. 

“Interesting advice, coming from a Qunari.” Solas tilted his head to one side and said no more. Bull took that as his cue to leave. 

For his part, Solas did not run, as Bull half-expected him to. No, he stayed, side by side with Trevelyan.

Trevelyan brought Solas and Varric along with him to the Storm Coast. Apart from Iron Bull, they were the two of his companions who'd had the most contact with the Qunari. 

Trevelyan either didn't notice or flat out ignored the tension between Solas and Iron Bull. Varric noticed it, of course, and tried to get between the two of them at every chance he got. 

They arrived at the Coast, at the appointed meeting spot. The Chargers had come along as well, a few days behind.

“So, the contact's supposed to meet us here,” Bull said. 

“He is indeed,” a man came out of the shadows of the trees, a thin, pale elf man with dark hair.

“Gatt!” Bull smiled, surprised. 

“You know each other?” Trevelyan asked.

“We fought together in Seheron,” Bull explained. “I didn't realize they'd let you loose.”

Gatt gave a chilly smile. “They figured I'd calmed down enough to come back to the world.”

Gatt explained the plan—they would cover a dreadnaught as the ship attacked the Venatori who were smuggling lyrium. After that, they could discuss terms of their alliance.

Solas glared daggers at Gatt, but said nothing.

The group split up, the Chargers going to one Venatori outpost, and Trevelyan and the others going to another one. 

They walked up the coast, and Gatt decided that it was time to make conversation. This was not a good idea.

“Always surprising to see a Saarebas outside Par Vollen,” Gatt said off-handedly. 

Solas did not reply. 

“Hope Hissrad’s keeping an eye on you, at least.”

Trevelyan shifted, uncomfortable. 

Solas’ glare intensified, and he met Gatt’s eyes. 

Gatt closed his mouth. 

“...alright then,” he muttered, turning away.

“It’s nothing personal, Gatt,” Bull murmured to him. He was sure Gatt probably knew of Solas’ Tal-vashoth status, but since Solas was under Bull’s eye, he likely saw Solas as a potential return to the Qun. Since Bull wasn’t attacking Solas, Gatt would just assume that Solas should be treated as if he planned to return.

Gatt shrugged.

They met the Venatori camp. When they finished with the Venatori, they came to stop on the cliff, overlooking the sea. 

“There it is,” Gatt pointed to a massive ship in the distance. Maxwell whistled. It was larger than any ship he’d ever seen before.

“There's the Chargers,” Varric nodded down the slope, to where the Chargers had taken care of the other Venatori camp. Bull grinned with pride. Solas couldn't help feeling some pride as well. 

“Wait,” Maxwell murmured. “Look--”

More Venatori were coming up the coast, far more than the Chargers could handle on their own. The Venatori had clearly been prepared.

The breath left Bull's chest.

“Bull—they'll be slaughtered,” Maxwell gasped.

“They have to hold that position, Hissrad,” Gatt said, sliding a glance towards Trevelyan. 

“They're my men, Gatt,” Bull growled.

“I know. But you have to do what's right—both of you,” he looked at Solas, who merely fixed him with an icy stare.

Solas turned to Trevelyan, ignoring Gatt. “You cannot leave them to die,” he said quietly.

“If you sound the retreat, you'd be throwing away an alliance with the Qunari—you both would be Tal-vashoth!” 

Solas ignored Gatt. Bull turned a pleading gaze on Trevelyan, wanting him to make the decision he couldn't.

“Sound the retreat,” Maxwell ordered, with hardly a second thought.

“No--” Gatt exclaimed. 

Bull raised a horn to his lips, sounding the call for retreat. The Chargers backed off, getting away from the position before the Venatori could reach them. Gatt shook his head, shocked.

“Saarebas--surely you won’t allow this--” Gatt tried. 

“You did not think I went willingly to the Qunari, did you?” Solas raised an eyebrow, and the pure venom in his voice made Gatt back up a few steps.

Gatt glanced from Bull to Solas and back. “Hissrad--Saarebas--”

“They have names,” Maxwell stepped forward. “They’re the Iron Bull and Solas. They aren’t things.’

Solas’ glare sharpened as he looked at Gatt, who stared, openly mystified. 

“You’d be throwing away an alliance with the Qunari--for them?” 

“They’re _my men_ , Gatt,” Bull's voice was low and terribly dangerous.

“You cannot be surprised at this,” Solas said. “At those who would prefer freedom rather than mindless obedience to the Qun.” 

Gatt at last turned to Maxwell. ‘If you retreat, you’ll have no allegiance wih us,” he growled.

Trevelyan scoffed. “And be allied with you, who’ve proved to be so trustworthy? No, I don’t think so.”

The dreadnaught sank, victim of Venatori fire. Gatt just shook his head, and left them. 

They were quiet on the way back. Late one night, Solas and Iron Bull were the only ones still awake.

“I guess we’re both Tal-vashoth, now,” Bull sighed.

“I was never Qunari. And you are not Tal-vashoth, Iron Bull, not really,” Solas assured him.

Bull sighed. “That’s a fuckin’ relief.”

Solas put a hand on his arm.

“You made a choice. There is no shame in that.”

Bull looked at him. The hand on his arm burned. They were so close together, closer than they had been in months.

Bull’s lips met his.

Solas was surprised at first, then he relaxed, but only for a moment. He pushed Bull away, cheeks red. 

“I--we shouldn’t,” he said, looking away. 

“Sorry,” Bull felt compelled to apologize. “I--you’re right. I’m sorry. I thought that--never mind.”

Solas glanced at him. “No--I should apologize. Perhaps my intentions were--unclear.”

“I shouldn’t have assumed--really, I thought that--I should have asked first,” Bull couldn’t recall the last time he’d felt so offset. “It's not fair to you.” it was manipulative. It was completely unbalanced. 

He wanted it so, so much. He'd probably wanted Solas since he'd first seen him, frail and wounded in the Qunari dungeons, a storm behind those eyes. He wanted him so much it hurt, and the wave of desire slammed into him so unexpectedly it was like the world had dropped out from underneath him. 

“Nor to you. Leaving the Qun is a great change—a shock. You are not feeling yourself.” 

“No, I guess not,” Bull agreed. It was true, he wasn't. Everything felt like a dream, half-formed and strange, his head pounding with the thrumming of his heart. 

They were quiet, sitting next to each other.

Solas' lips tingled with the memory of Bull's kiss. In his heart he wanted to taste Bull again, to touch him, to lose himself in the other man--

He wanted to lose himself. Be the person he was around Iron Bull, a strange apostate with no obligations and no allegiances—and all that would matter was what was between them, this curious intertwining game of push and pull and blood and flesh. He wanted to be in Bull's dreams, to feel their minds coming together again. 

He couldn't, of course. To lose himself was to lose everything. He could let nothing distract him from his duty. 

Without another word, they each went to their separate tents. Bull lay awake, thinking of Solas. His thin, scarred body and his fiery, angry eyes. 

Solas dreamed of Iron Bull, unbound from the Qun. A beautiful creature no longer shackled by a terrible weight. 

All the others knew was that the previous tensions had eased, to be replaced by something different. 

“Sorry the alliance didn't work out, Chief,” Krem said when they met back up again.

“Not your fault.”

“You and Solas alright?”

Bull nodded. “Solas doesn't care—you know, he hated the Qun from the beginning.”

“Yeah, he doesn't hide that real well.” 

Krem eyed Bull, knowing the look in Bull's face. He was infatuated—which was a funny thing to see in Bull, but then, he'd probably been infatuated since Solas had turned up in the south. 

“You should, I dunno, talk about it,” Krem suggested. “Maybe you'd have some stuff in common.”

Bull snorted. “Not likely. He didn't exactly join the Qun on purpose, if you know what I mean.”

Krem shrugged. “Suit yourself.” 

Cole, of course, was the first one to pick up on it. 

“Everything's made strange, but you're familiar to each other,” he said, popping up next to Solas' desk unexpectedly one evening.

Solas paused, taking a moment to understand what Cole was talking about. “I suppose, in a way,” he agreed.

“You could be happy together,” Cole said, not fooled at all by Solas' sidestepping. 

“I am not certain that would be wise, Cole,” Solas said. 

Cole just looked at him with those luminous blue eyes. “You can help each other. You understand each other.”

“Only in some respects, Cole.”

“In the ones that matter.”

“I do not think so. I think we would not be good for each other.”

Cole gave him a tiny smile. “I think so. I know.” 

Solas had no response to that. It was true, after all—a spirit of Compassion would undoubtedly know who would be the kindest to one another. Solas simply wasn't certain that he or Bull were capable of doing that. What was true in dreams was not necessarily true in the physical world.

Cole when to Iron Bull next.

“Kid, I don't really need you trying to muck around in my love life,” Bull sighed.

Cole blinked at him. 

“But--”

“Thanks, Cole. But I can work this out on my own.” and by 'work it out' he meant 'leave it alone.'

But he couldn't. 

Since Cole came to him, Bull couldn't stop thinking about that one, rushed kiss with Solas. The way he'd tasted of magic and blood, how he'd smelled so clean, like a rainstorm. 

He really shouldn't have kept thinking about it. It wasn't good for either of them. He could hurt Solas all too easily, and of course there was the problem of magic. 

Something about Bull was magnetic. 

Solas didn't know what it was, why it pulled him so. By all rights, he should have been repelled—at the very least, Bull wanted so badly for a master that he would be easy to manipulate. It was hardly the most ethical thing to do. 

But he wanted him. 

He shouldn't. He really, really shouldn't.

In retrospect, the amount of time the two stayed away from each other was fairly heroic.

Until they stopped. 

It was more of an accident than anything. They ran into each other in front of the mage tower that was being constructed. 

“Iron Bull,”

Bull turned to see Solas standing in the doorway that lead to the tower.

“Hey,” Bull turned back to him. “Did you need something?”

“I am merely passing through,” Solas glanced up at him, and made to brush by him.

Against his better judgement, Bull reached out and snagged Solas' arm. Solas paused, looking down at the hand on his arm, then back up at Bull, saying nothing.

“Solas--” Bull managed. “I--” the words died in his mouth. He wanted—there was no way to put that into something he could say out loud. Instead, he merely met Solas' eyes, trying to convey his meaning in expression alone. Of all people, Solas would have a chance of understanding that. 

Solas looked at him for a long moment. Then Solas reached up and pressed his lips to Bull’s. 

He was so warm. Bull pulled him into his arms, and Solas wrapped his own arms around Bull's neck. Bull tasted magic on Solas' lips, and he drowned in the sensation, feeling as lost as he ever had been. 

They broke apart. “We should not do this,” Solas murmured.

“Do you wanna stop?”

“No,” Solas grasp grew tighter. There was a roaring in his ears, and Bull smelled like spice and dragon's hide, and want rose up in him, pounding in his throat. “No, I do not.” 

“Then let’s keep going.”

They left the tower, retreated to Bull's bed, and it was with little care that they removed each other's clothes. 

“I missed you,” Bull murmured, cradling Solas to him. 

Solas closed his eyes. 

He'd missed Bull's dreams, his spirit, that shone through even under the terrible weight of Par Vollen. 

There was the sound of the ocean in his ears. He felt like he was drowning, and there was a lost look in Bull's eyes that made Solas cling to him like the only harbor in a storm. 

Solas pressed a kiss against Bull's cheek, moved down, drawing his lips over Bull's jawline and down his throat. 

“I want you,” he murmured. “Ma fenorain, I want you.” 

Bull smiled, his heart hammering. 

“Glad to hear it.” he touched Solas' chin, made him look into his eyes. “Tell me to stop, and I will.” 

Solas gave him a strange, brittle smile, and inclined his head. “If I desired you to stop, Iron Bull, we would not be here.” 

“That isn't what I mean.” 

“So do not stop.” 

Bull let out a heavy breath, his blood hot under his skin. He reached down and grabbed Solas' arse, spreading him open. Solas gasped with the suddenness of it, sinking his nails into the skin of Bull's arm. 

“Take it easy,” Bull said, and grabbed a bottle of lube from the drawer in the nightstand. 

He wanted to tell Solas that they didn't have to go that fast, but he wanted to. He wanted to fuck Solas till the man couldn't speak. He wanted to see him debauched, exhausted, used--

Solas, for his part, only captured Bull's lips in a kiss, and sank his teeth into Bull's lip. He so badly wanted to forget, wanted to lose himself in sensation, wanted to fall into his skin so he could pretend nothing else existed. 

There was the taste of blood in his mouth, and Solas realized he'd broken the skin of Bull's lip, but Bull didn't seem to mind. No, all Bull did was coat his fingers in lube.

The lube smelled good, sweet, and Solas was surprised, but didn't have the presence of mind to ask about it.

Bull grasped his cock, coated it in the lube, and Solas wrapped his arms around Bull's neck, pulled him close. 

The air felt so heavy, and the taste of blood was so strong, and everything in Solas' mind was so strange, like the world had torn out from under his feet.

Bull thrust in, and Solas gasped. Pleasure raced up his spine, and everything was going too fast, too fast--

He wrapped his legs around Bull's waist. In the back of his mind, he knew how terrible an idea this was, but it seemed like his life had been predicated on terrible ideas. 

Bull set a pace that was on the bare edge of punishing, and Solas felt a surge of adoration for it. 

“ _Yes_ \--”

There was a roaring in his ears, and everything fell away. The moment crystalized, as if there was nothing else. They were both drowning, thoroughly lost, a storm collapsing upon them. 

Solas felt like he had never wanted anything else.

They fell asleep, still in each other's arms.

Bull's dreams were calm. As Solas walked the pathways of Bull's mind, he found that Bull's dreams were quiet for the first time in a long while. No nightmares of blood or chains or labyrinths plagued him as they once had.

That was progress, of a sort.

Solas was still next to him when Bull awoke, much to his own surprise as well as Iron Bull's.

“So,” Bull said, blinking his eye open. “That happened.”

“Indeed,” Solas agreed. Tentatively, carefully, Bull reached out and took Solas' hand. 

“If we're gonna make stupid decisions, might as well do them together, right?” Bull said, his tone almost one of resignation.

Solas cracked a smile. 

“I suppose so.”

Krem, of course, noticed the instant Solas and Bull started to spend more time together. He approved, quietly. 

Everyone else was a bit slower to notice, but it was hard to miss the lack of tension between them. 

“Well, I’m glad the two of you have each other, anyway,” Maxwell smiled and patted Bull’s arm. 

A feeling of warmth spread in Bull’s chest.

“Yeah,” he said. 

Bull should have known it wouldn't be calm seas forever. 

The pleasantness broke one late night on the Storm Coast—funny, as it was almost the same place where Bull and Solas had met a third time. 

They were fighting Red Templars, and one especially large one had Solas cornered. The Templar broke through Solas' barrier, and threw him to the ground. Solas landed painfully, his focus shattering, the breath going out of him all at once. The others were all busy with their own opponents. 

This was not so serious a problem for him. He had faced worse. With the coldness that came with being in the middle of battle, Solas grabbed a fallen sword, and thrust it right into the weak spot in the Templar's armor where chestplate met shoulder plating. Blood spurted from the wound, and to Solas' distaste, some of it landed on his face.

He twisted the blade dispassionately, and the Templar gasped. A well-placed arcane bolt was all that was needed to kill the man, and by the time he was dead, the battle was over.

Solas got to his feet, aching. He let the sword drop—he had a singular distaste for bladed weapons. He huffed a breath, pressed a hand to his chest.

Bull hurried over, the worry in his heart growing, rather than fading, with the end of the battle.

“You alright?” 

Solas nodded. “Of course.”

“You took a pretty bad hit,” Bull looked him over.

Solas just shrugged.

“Solas, you can't--”

“Clearly, I can.”

Bull grabbed Solas' wrist. “Don't do that again,” he said, the command clear in his voice.

Solas froze, then his grey eyes met Bull's, utterly cold.

“I will not obey you,” he informed Bull, tone icy. “You do _not_ command me, Iron Bull.”

He yanked his wrist out of Bull's hold. Bull regretted the words, but they were out of his mouth and there was no taking them back. 

Solas would not be commanded. Not even in this. He was cold to Bull thereafter. If Bull still desired to command him, even after everything, then they had nothing more to say to each other.

Krem noticed Bull's foul mood when Bull returned to Skyhold. He could immediately connect it with Solas.

“What happened?” Krem asked.

“Said something I shouldn't have,” Bull admitted. 

“Mm,” Krem rested his chin on his hand. “And what was that?”

“Told him to keep out of danger.” 

Krem raised an eyebrow. “That all?”

Bull rubbed the back of his head. “Well...it's complicated.”

Krem snorted. “Why is everything so damned complicated with you two?” he shook his head. “You try apologizing for any of it?”

“Any of what?”

Krem raised his eyebrows. “I kinda got the feeling a lot of stuff that was pretty bad went down in Par Vollen, hey?”

Bull couldn't deny that.

“So, maybe tell him sorry.”

Bull though about that. He wasn't sure it would help, but Krem tended to have a good instinct about these kind of things, so he sought Solas out. He found him in a corner of Skyhold's garden, far away from other people.

Bull sat next to Solas.

Solas didn't look at him, but his jaw tightened.

“Hey,” Bull said.

Solas' only concession that he had heard was a slight tilt to his head. They sat quietly for several moments, Bull trying to pick his words and at the same time waiting for Solas to break the silence.

Solas did not, in any way, feel like speaking. 

“In the Qun, you have a place,” Bull said at last.

Solas glared. Not at Bull, but at the world in general.

“It's...easier, to do things if you know where you fit.”

Solas said nothing. His glare grew more intense.

“Not for everyone, I know,” Bull looked down at the ground. “Not for a lot of people. But it's kind of hard to...forget, the way you think, there.”

Solas finally looked at him. His gray eyes were like chips of flint. “I understand the difficulties of unshacking one's mind when it has been chained,” he said at last. “But even so, I will not be commanded, least of all by you.”

“Yeah, I figured that.” 

“I do not wish for anyone else to order my life but myself,” Solas informed him. “I desire the privacy of my thoughts.”

Bull let out a sigh. “Yeah,” he agreed again. “I can see that.” they sat quietly for a long while. “The Qun makes people happy,” Bull said.

“Except for you.”

“No, I--”

Solas merely looked at him, gray eyes seeming to see everything. Bull just sighed. 

“I guess not.”

Solas nodded. 

“You do not command me,” he reminded Bull.

Bull smiled, and touched Solas' chin. “Kadan,” Bull murmured. “I don't think anyone could.”

“Ma vhenan,” Solas said softly, the word slipping from his mouth before he could think twice. “I am glad to have met you. Do not doubt that.”

“I don't.”

Solas smiled.

The world continued.

They went to the Winter Palace, and they danced. They went to the Temple of Mythal, and Bull did not miss the melancholy look Solas gave Abelas when the other left. 

Solas vanished again, after Corypheus’ death. Bull wasn’t surprised. Honestly, he would have been more surprised had Solas stayed behind.

He actually didn’t mind that much. He figured he’d see Solas again, eventually. It just made sense that Solas liked his space, and he had a habit of disappearing for long periods of time.

Bull just didn’t expect the circumstances under which he’d see Solas again.

It was two years later, and the Inquisition got back together in Halam’shiral for one last big meeting. 

Bull wasn't too much in the loop until the very end—when the Viddasala told everyone that it was Solas behind so much of this, behind this Fen'harel business. Maxwell had chased her through the chain of eluvians, until they'd lost him behind one that flickered and died just as they reached it. When it came alive again, Maxwell came stumbling through, clutching his arm. 

“Need to get rid of it,” he waved his arm, green and dripping magic. They'd cut the whole thing off, hacked it off at the elbow. 

Maxwell had insisted on seeing Bull first after his recovery. 

“Bull,” he croaked, horribly pale, but his chin stubborn and strong. 

“Yeah,” he sat down next to him. “I'm here.”

“It's Solas,” he whispered.

“What happened?”

“He's Fen'harel, Bull.”

“Fen’harel?” Bull muttered.

Maxwell nodded, and closed his eyes, leaning back on his pillow. Bull looked down at Trevelyan’s arm, bandaged up like it was, and inside he was cold. 

Bull hunted down that last eluvian. It flickered in and out of life, and as if it could sense him, it began to shine brightly as he approached.

He took a breath, and walked through.

The courtyard on the other side was full of statues. 

Qunari statues. Bull walked wonderingly through the strange space—the statues of Stens surrounding him. At the top of a hill, he found the statue in the exact likeness of the Viddasala. He shuddered. He didn't want to know what kind of magic could cause that.

“Solas,” Bull called.

No one answered. 

Bull continued walking. He felt like this was particularly unfair—but perhaps maybe not to him. If anything, at the very least Trevelyan and Cole deserved a better explanation than this. 

The huge eluvian behind him came crackling to life.

Bull turned.

There he was—walking out of the eluvian, dressed in strange armor and shrouded in more magic than Bull had ever seen. 

“Kadan,” the word fell out of Bull's mouth before he could stop it. Solas stopped and looked at him. 

Solas had the strangest sense of deja vu. 

“Iron Bull.”

“What are you doing?” Bull stepped towards him. Solas did not move back, merely looked at him with an expression that made him seem utterly alien. Bull had the strangest feeling, as if he stood before a dragon, or before Corypheus. 

“Did Trevelyan not tell you?”

“I want to hear it from you.”

Solas hesitated, and finally looked away. “Do you know who Fen'harel is?” it was a reasonable enough question.

“Yeah. Dalish trickster god. I've heard a few stories.”

Solas frowned. “I am no god.”

“Right. So...?” 

Solas sighed. He didn't want to talk about this, not with Bull. He would have rather just moved on. 

He felt the strangest sense of nostalgia. 

“Fen'harel was an insult, one I took as a badge of pride.” the words exhausted him. “There are no Dalish gods. Only Elvhen mages, generals, who stole power, and whose reputation turned to myth.” 

Bull nodded slowly, as if that made sense. It didn't, not very much, anyway. “What are you going to do?” 

“I am going to tear down the Veil.” 

“You...what?”

Solas just inclined his head.

“Solas, that's insane. You'll kill everyone!”

Solas looked at him.

“Do you truly believe I would allow such a thing as the Qunari to stand?” he asked, his voice soft.

“Is that what this is about?” Bull demanded. “Just the Qunari?”

Solas shook his head. “No. Not them alone.” he stepped away from Iron Bull, his expression shuttering. “Goodbye, vhenan,” he said quietly.

“Solas--” Bull made to take Solas' arm, but was repelled by a barrier that felt like hitting a wall of ice.

Solas looked at him, expression as cold as it had been when they had first met, all that time ago. 

“I will not abandon my plans. Not even for you.”

Especially not for you.

Solas walked back through the eluvian, and its light died behind him.

Iron Bull was left alone on the cliff, the eluvian cold and closed. 

Solas proved to be a vicious opponent. He knew the ins and outs of not only the Inquisition, but Ferelden, Orlais, Nevarra, even Tevinter--anywhere that the Inquisition had had dealings with, he knew. 

Leliana cursed herself for not seeing it sooner.

“All my spywork for naught,” she snorted. “He was watching the whole time.”

Iron Bull knew how she felt. He probably should have picked something up while he was interrogating him, all those years ago. 

In his dreams, Bull caught a glimpse of a white wolf. 

Slowly, Solas’ forces began to eat away at the others. 

It seemed that even with Solas’ plans being so destructive, there were a large number of people who did not care, or even favored the destruction. Even many of the Dalish rallied behind him, and there were hundreds of Tevinter slaves who fled to his side.

They had enabled this. 

Bull felt the strangest combination of hurt and pride and betrayal—he should have seen this coming. He should have noticed.

But of course. His kadan could outplay anyone. 

Solas, for his part, felt only a cold satisfaction as he enacted his plans. He could afford no more missteps, and he made none. The more he saw, the more he became convinced of, if not the moral rightness of his ploy, the necessity of it. 

After some years of waging quiet war, the true war broke out in full, and Solas found himself once again taking the mantle of a general, a terrifying adversary. He did not take to the battlefield as often as he did when he was younger, but when he did, it was with a singleminded purpose that terrified even his allies.

Iron Bull saw him once, across the battlefield, wearing a helm shaped like a wolf’s head, glowing with more magic than anyone had any right to. 

He reminded Bull of a dragon in some ways, all power and lightning and impossible strength.

In other ways, in cold calculating ways, he was nothing like a dragon at all. 

He targeted country after country, destroying each of the threats to him systematically. The Tevinter government was the first to go, wrecked after rebellion upon rebellion, the Archon dead and no successor ever named. 

He had then set his sights on Orlais, inflaming the tenuous political situation until a civil war broke out again, and all the hard work of the Inquisition was for naught. Empress Celene was killed, caught in the throat by a stray arrow during a riot in Halam'shiral, after which the city itself was quickly lost to the forces of Fen'harel. 

Then it was Ferelden's turn, King Alistair frantically trying to quell unrest for months. It was all for naught, as when Solas' forces reached Denerim, Alistair was thrown from the top of a tower, and that city was claimed as well. 

The Inquisition was hemmed in by all sides. They knew an invasion of Skyhold was coming, and they tried to prepare for it, but they failed. After a week of hard fighting, some of the hardest of their lives, the Inqusition's forces were chased out, and the fortress was lost.

Bull would always remember the silhouette of Skyhold on the horizon as they retreated, its towers burning, magical fire blazing and turning the dark sky a multitude of colors.

The remnants of the Inquisition gathered in the ruins of a noble's house in the outskirts of Val Royeaux, and tried to plan, but they couldn't pull themselves together enough to. 

Dorian was frantically trying to rally the remnants of the Tevinter government, but it was in shambles. Vivienne scrambled to get the remaining mages to unite, but a good portion of them had gone to Solas' side, and many of the others were thoroughly sick of war. So many of Sera's Red Jennies had defected or died, their beloved cities in flames or occupied, that they were a shadow of what they once were. 

Likewise, Cassandra and Leliana tried to gather those Orlesian and Fereldan nobles who still survived, but they were all scattered. The Chantry had been in tatters for years, even with Leliana's ascendancy to the Sunburst Throne, and its deterioration only got worse with time. 

In between frantic meetings, panicked missives exchanged with other figures in hiding, and the sleepless nights spent making plans, a great deal of drinking was done. This was not like fighting Corypheus. This was not an Archdemon. 

This was something altogether different. 

They tried not to voice their regrets. Regrets were worthless—only action had any meaning. 

But it was hard. 

Vivienne's eyes turned to chips of ice when Fen'harel came up in conversation. Sera's lip curled and spots of color appeared in her cheeks. Cassandra closed her eyes and bit her lip, her permanent scowl growing deeper. 

“After all the time we fought beside him,” Blackwall would say, late at night, when they had all had a bit too much to drink (as they often did). “We should have known. Should've done something--”

They all should have seen this, they told themselves. 

“You wouldn't have,” Bull said, every time someone voiced these sentiments. “Just trust me.” 

After having Solas in his dreams, in his bed, in his power—if he couldn't see the danger, even then, then no one was capable of it. 

A perverse pride lurked in Bull's chest whenever Solas won a battle, a feeling he could voice to no one. The strangest sense that it was his kadan who was so strong, so wily, so powerful—an awful love bloomed in his heart, even as the world continued to crumble.

He had never let go of his admiration of dragons, after all.

The last casualty of Solas' campaign was, of course, Par Vollen. They had considered going to Par Vollen, asking for help, when word came that it, too, was burning, just like Orlais and Ferelden and Tevinter. 

It seemed that Solas had placed several key people in positions of importance. Bull wasn't sure how he'd managed to recruit Vashoth, as Par Vollen doubtless would not trust any elf they came across, but he'd done so. In one, terrible night, these people (mages, of course) had managed to destroy Par Vollen's government, then the infrastructure, and even the military. Par Vollen was no more an option than any of the rest.

When no one could stand against him, that was when Solas' work truly began, and he prepared to destroy the Veil.

And that really was the end of the world. Bull wondered how they could have ever mistaken the Breach for the real thing.

They tried to stop him, of course. They really did try. The Hero of Ferelden and Hawke and Trevelyan all rallied their forces, got Gray Wardens and Orlesian Chevaliers and anyone who could pick up a sword to their side, to bring them against the end of days. 

It didn't work. The Hero died. Hawke died. Trevelyan, last to die, did so nobly, going down under a whole copse of sylvanwoods so others could escape—but nobility had little place in this particular war.

Bull found himself on a blasted battlefield, one last survivor of a terrible battle, clinging to the side of a cliff as the sky raged overhead, lightning cracking and fire blazing.

The sky began to crack, almost like it had during the Breach, so long ago now. The wind began to howl and it was all Bull could do to hold on to the ledge.

A light shone, one that outshone all the other lights. Bull peered, and at the center of the light, he saw a familiar figure, one in a helm shaped like a wolf's head.

Bull fought his way forward, against the light and the driving wind. Perhaps it was luck, or maybe Solas let him get close, but Bull finally stood face-to-face with his kadan.

All was quiet at the center of the light, but it burned, ever so slightly. Solas didn't seem to be made uncomfortable by it at all. 

“You didn't have to do this,” Bull told him. Though he was much taller than Solas, he had not felt it in years. 

Solas looked at him. His eyes blazed, quite literally, the irises completely obscured by a brilliant white light. It was as if everything inside him had been consumed by magic. “This world cannot continue to stand.”

“You'd throw everything away? All of this?” 

“Love alone cannot save a world, ma vhenan,” Solas' voice was quiet, so very gentle, and it made Bull's heart crack with the cruelty of it. “Not even your love.”

“But--” Bull trailed off. It only made sense, after all. 

The sky overhead cracked more, shattering like a piece of glass. 

Everything around them began to collapse, but Bull paid no attention. He grabbed Solas’ hand, pulling him close as the world vanished into stars and light.

Solas seemed surprised as he looked up, into Bull’s face. The glow vanished from his eyes, bit by bit, till they looked normal again, the stormy gray shining through the white light. 

“You really shouldn’t’ve done this,” Bull said

Impossibly, Solas gave him a tiny smile. “It is too late, is it not?” he reached out, gently took Bull's hand. His mouth tasted of blood, of magic, and he felt like he were drowning. But then, he always had been. 

The world was falling away, and it seemed as if the entire universe contained only their two souls, and endless, endless light.

Bull didn’t take his eyes away from Solas’. “I guess not.”

“Ar lath ma, Vhenan,” Solas’ hand was warm in Bull’s own, his skin one solid point of contact in a world turned to chaos. “Never doubt that.” 

In spite of everything, Bull smiled, and pressed his lips to Solas’ forehead. 

“I never would, Kadan.”


End file.
